"I was the engineer on the recording sessions and I also made the masters for the original LP issues of these albums. Since the advent of the CD, other people have been making the masters. Mastering is the final step in the process of creating the sound of the finished product. Now, thanks to the folks at the Concord Music Group who have given me the opportunity to remaster these albums, I can present my versions of the music on CD using modern technology. I remember the sessions well, I remember how the musicians wanted to sound, and I remember their reactions to the playbacks. Today, I feel strongly that I am their messenger."

—Rudy Van Gelder

Out There was the second album for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz by the inestimable multi-reedman/composer Eric Dolphy (1928-1964). It was in every way stunning—from the eerie cover painting to the starkly beautiful colors of an ensemble consisting of reeds, cello, bass, and drums, to the ways in which the compositions (four by Dolphy) fused bebop solos and ever-expanding freebop harmonies with contemporary classical chamber works. This was a deeply personal statement by a musician who in 1960 was beginning to establish himself as one of the most expressive instrumental voices of his time. Dolphy and young Ron Carter, heard here on cello rather than bass, interact throughout with a closeness bordering on the extrasensory, and on Charles Mingus’s "Eclipse" and especially Hale Smith’s "Feathers," Dolphy produces two of the most moving performances of a life that ended all too soon.